


Watermelon Sugar in Spidey Minor.

by bad besties for life (doubleinfinity)



Category: Deadpool - All Media Types, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man/Deadpool - Joe Kelly (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Banter, Character Study, Driving, Falling In Love, I make bold assumptions about Peter's astrological chart placements, M/M, Mutual Pining, Relationship Study, Romantic Friendship, Running Away, harry styles exists in the spiderverse, healing factor, impermanent death, so they're in their 30s, teamup comics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:41:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27823183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doubleinfinity/pseuds/bad%20besties%20for%20life
Summary: Peter has a panic attack and runs off with Wade in the middle of the night. He should be used to watching Wade die and come back by now. He's not.(Peter thinks Wade doesn’t take anything seriously. Wade thinks Peter’s too good for him. They pine.)☆ character / relationship study ☆☆ team up comics ☆
Relationships: Peter Parker/Wade Wilson
Comments: 17
Kudos: 90





	Watermelon Sugar in Spidey Minor.

**Author's Note:**

> It's been a HOT MINUTE since I've written for these two, but I have a steadily burning love for them that never goes away. c': Glad to be back and spending some more time with these sweet boys.

If Deadpool’s a flatlining heart monitor, then Spidey is the bardcore version of a pop song- all the sweet, plucked strings of a lute rendered in synthetic anachronisity, ancient and fresh at once. Or perhaps he’s something curled up in a further corner of the internet. The Mii Channel x Coffin Dance mashup by Silvagunner, to offer an example. Simultaneously a classic _and_ a bop. A familiar tune reaching new heights. Violin in all the right places. Link in the end notes.

“Wade,” Spidey says, leaning over him.

Deadpool splutters, twisting on the pavement. He can practically see the thin line of Spidey’s mouth, pulled into a disapproving frown below the mask. He has enough of a millisecond to think that Webs is being a bit harsh on a man who’s currently dying. Then the lights go out and he goes full flat.

There’s darkness. Long, vacuuming, soundless darkness.

Peter asked him once what was in there. If there’s anything, it’s not the sort of memory that sticks around. No white light pouring down on him, no feather on a scale, no harps and salad bowls, nothing like that. He has to admit it: he fucking hateeess it when he gets his lights punched out with a bullet to the skull and tumbles unceremoniously into that blackness. Insta-kills suck worse than torture. But this? _This?_ When he’s got his partner in (decidedly) anti-crime standing over him, looking slender and angelic in just his suit, miles of spandexy webbing traveling up and down the length of him and towering over Wade as he bleeds out on the sidewalk, dissolving into that void… _this_ is not so bad.

Death is impermanent for Wade, and in some way, Spidey is his tether to the living world. A reason to get back up again.

Hours pass before the darkness begins to clear. Wade comes back to life the same way he always does: very slowly.

The healing factor kicks in. His nerves knot back together. Synapses arrange themselves into familiar patterns. Veins snap into place. Blood spurts into arteries. Pulmonary circuits close. His consciousness comes first and for a while he is simply a creature experiencing the sensation of being alive. It is always this moment that he mourns later; the sweet, delicate way that his brain handles him in those first few moments after death, letting him piece together the world with none of the burden of memories attached.

Deadpool’s eyes flutter as light spreads across his vision. There are gentle beams, all sorts of colors, surrounding him. Something purrs and he sighs in answer, closing his eyes and giving his body to the vibrating heat.

“Wade?”

Spidey’s voice seeps into him. It fills him slowly. His memories creep back.

“Like strawberries on a summer evening,” he murmurs gruffly, rolling his shoulders to dig them into the seat warmer. His eyes flitter around, taking in the warm streaks of moonlight on the pavement, the vast stretches of green trailing off into darkness. “Are we upstate?”

Sometimes he dies and the song stuck in his head is still waiting for him when he comes back, a lyric unfinished on his tongue, leaping over the precipice of eternity to find completion.

“Somewhat. How’s your shoulder?”

Wade sighs and grimaces, testing the skin and bones with a tentative hand. “A-ok, Webs. Knitted right back together.” He stills feels the phantom gaping of three bullets stretching him open with no foreplay. “How long’s it been since I died?”

“Couple of hours,” Webs says, eyes on the road. Mesh on the road, rather. His mask is pulled up to the bridge of his nose.

The moon is low on the horizon, a full-bellied dime brushing against the canopy of trees. He uses its light to study the younger male, Peter’s hands clocked at firm angles and foot pressed searingly hard on the gas pedal. Spiderman’s eyes don’t budge from their locked target on the horizon.

“Ah,” Wade answers. Flicks his eyes to the dashboard. _4:05am_. “How long have we been driving?”

“Couple of hours,” Spidey echoes.

“I see. You’re going 90, you know.”

“Gotta go fast.”

“Mmm,” he agrees. “So Sonic, where are we, you know, running?”

“We’re not running,” Spidey throws back. Then, “Shit.” 

And just like that, the awakening goes from a gradual birds-and-sunlight affair to the ten backup alarms plugged into his smartphone. Spidey’s engine sputters and the younger male grabs the wheel, yanking the car forcibly onto the shoulder of the road. Tires squeal as they kick up mud. Peter throws the emergency break into place and everything screeches to a halt.

Not running, his ass. But before Wade can even sort out which hemisphere controls which limbs, Spidey’s got him wrapped up and tucked under his arm, wrists out and webs flying. He’s ripped from the car and suddenly they’re in the air, whirling from one tree to the next, an iron grip and its tacky secretion keeping Wade close.

The road flies below them, a hot July wind slapping Wade’s cheeks every time a well-flexed wrist thrusts them forward. He can hear Spidey panting in his ear, his breaths coming in razed and panicked. In one motion, Wade reaches up and seizes a strand of webbing with both hands. He yanks as hard as he can.

Spidey yelps. They’re sent tumbling, collapsing onto the ground, Wade gritting his teeth as his weak shoulder collides with a hard surface. “ _Mother_ ,” he hisses.

“Wade!” Peter yells, and when the older looks at him he is unmasked, eyes wide and glossy and terrified. He tries to jump to his feet and Deadpool growls, leaping forward. One well-timed restraint and they’re both spilling back down into the grass.

“Slow down, Spideybabe,” he says roughly, wrestling the smaller for dominance. “As far as the bedtime stories are concerned, Spiderman doesn’t run from his problems. So what kinda situation are we in that’s bad enough you can’t slip through it?”

Deadpool is pretty right-leaning when it comes to the spectrum between pencil dick and thicc, but the Webs he knows is crafty and resourceful and has no issue going toe-to-toe with something as primitive as brute strength. All the same, he can’t seem to wriggle out of the older’s grasp. He’s struggling for breath.

“Did something happen while I was out?” Wade asks. “Something I should know about?”

“I-” he tries to say and the word is swallowed into a portal of gasps.

“Peter,” Wade says firmly.

“I- I just don’t want to do this again,” he finally manages, the words bursting out of him in a growl. His chest heaves so hard that Deadpool feels a dual-edged sense of pride and sorrow bloom in him to see Webs not break down right there. “I don’t want to fight the next guy. I don’t want to save the city anymore. I’m done. I’m so done.”

Wade opens his mouth to say something delicate and supportive, but he stops. He’s not sure what does it. It might be the sweep of Peter’s eyes down his body. It might be the way his vision catches on Wade’s chest. And his skull. And now his shoulder.

“You don’t like watching me die,” he realizes.

All of Peter’s terror melts down into a gloominess so obvious that Wade feels a small laugh bubble out of him. If he knows one thing about Spiderman, it’s that he’s a virgo rising and scorpio venus all wrapped up in a little pisces ball. More than anything, he hates being found out.

“Yeah,” Wade goes on, his eyes narrowed. “I see what’s going on here. You’re damsel-in-distressing me.”

“No,” Peter deadpans. He scowls and swipes the tears off his cheek.

“Hmm,” Wade considers, grinning at him. “Not Sonic at all, then. Your otherkin list includes Mario, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“Ignorance of the law is not a defense for violating it.”

Wade studies Peter for a moment. He’s more peach than plumber; his idea of an ideal suit doesn’t just mean built in climate control and a slender build perfect for sugar-gliding through the air, it also means darkly feminine cat eyes. He washes his sheets once a week. His hair smells like strawberries. He cups his hands around bugs and walks them outside.

Vain and delicate, and here he is trying to white knight a man who matches his blades with bullets and can literally stitch himself back together after sustaining any kind of life-threatening injury.

“Wade-” Peter snaps, looking pissed as all hell, and Wade leans back, letting go and putting his hands in the air.

“I get it Webs. You’ve accidentally grown affectionate towards big boss bowser. It happens.”

“That’s it. I’m going to vomit.”

“My palms are out, baby.”

“I’m-” Peter stops, shaking his head and snatching his mask off the ground. “I’m out of here.”

Unsteadily, on wobbly legs, Peter pulls himself up and turns his back on Wade, walking away. He feels exhausted. He feels cold and drawn taut and whipped around. He just wants to take off the suit and lie down. He wants to close his eyes and find a way to crawl into that darkness that comes for Wade every time they fuck up a fight or have to take a quick L. But this time, when he wakes up, he’ll suddenly have a normal life, no more trauma or sacrifices, no horrific images clogging his mind’s eye at night, none of that terror that sucks in his breath every time he believes Wade won’t wake back up.

Something thwacks against his shoulder. He feels himself being pulled back. When he turns, Wade is holding onto a web shooter that must have unclasped from his wrist, reeling him in. His eyelids are heavy as he scans the older.

“Tell me what you want, Spiderman,” Wade says gently. “You want to run off into the sunset together? Is that what this is about?”

“No,” he says, taking a shaking breath. He sighs and looks down. “Not forever, at least.”

“Sounds to me like you’re asking for a break, baby boy.”

Peter wrings the mask in his hands. “I just… Spiderman can’t take a vacation.”

“Why not?”

“People will die.”

“I won’t miss ‘em.”

“Wade,” he growls.

“You run yourself into the ground, there’s going to be a lot more damage than if you go to the spa for a week or two.”

That’s just it, though. He’s been grinding through this life for so long that if he tried to relax and actually recuperate from everything, it would be a long time before he could get back up again. The second he lets his guard drop is the second he loses his grip.

Peter watches as Wade slowly lowers his arms from don’t-shoot to into an apologetic shrug.

Wade can’t understand. He quips his way through life. He doesn’t mind killing to meet his ends. He’s immortal, and he does not grasp the preciousness of time. He _dies_ , for fuck’s sake, and climbs back out of the coffin within 1 to 12 business hours. He cannot understand what Peter feels.

...He can’t understand what Peter feels towards him.

“Just tell me where you were going,” Wade proposes, dusting off his bloodied suit and getting to his feet. He grimaces. “Please?”

Sighing, Peter puts on the mask and pulls it down over his face. He stares at the road for a while before answering. “My parents used to keep a cabin in Vermont,” he murmurs, staring at his car, sad and dead in the middle of nowhere. “I just… I need to get out of the city.”

Wade looks amused. “You were gonna swing us from New York to Vermont?”

“We’re almost across the state border,” he winces.

The merc makes a sound. “Come here, Webs,” he says, shaking his head and turning back towards the road.

A few minutes later they’re standing at the back of Peter’s car, Wade’s hands folded knowingly across his chest.

“You… put a jerry can in my trunk?” he asks dumbfoundedly, then reaches in to pull out a sloshing container of coolant. “And snow scrapers, _and_ antifreeze?”

“Come on, Peter, we can’t both be pretty privilege gays.” He grabs the spare gas. “Got you the whole collection. Spare tire, nuts and bolts, yes, of course antifreeze, even something a little stronger if you ever get tired of the good boy shit and want to take out some of that pent up aggression.”

“Don’t know what you mean,” he grins sheepishly.

“Mmm, neither would I if I didn’t see the aggro way you type. Gabbie Hanna’s keyboard is missing less keys than yours.”

“My thesis was very demanding,” he shoots back, watching Wade lean over and feed the neck into the tank. He leans against the trunk. “But I was talking about the gay thing. Er. Or the pretty thing.”

Wade squints and looks up at him. “Kay,” he says.

The look lasts about a second, lingering just long enough to spear Peter with hotness but dislodging so fast that he feels the hole it left behind. He wants to believe he’s special. He wants to think that the cold terror he feels when Wade dies isn’t something he feels alone. That Wade is just as connected to him. That there’s a tether between them and this isn’t Spiderman shooting off webs into the dark.

But the truth is that Wade acts like this with everyone. He’s loud and crass and he’s going to inflict that on anyone he comes across. He happens to be riding with Spidey right now, but when he’s gone, he’ll just jump on with the next person.

“There,” Wade says, giving a tender pat to the side of the car. “Thirsty bitch.”

He rolls back on the balls of his feet, idly fumbling with the cap to the filler. He feels Peter’s eyes on him and wonders what he’s thinking- would _kill_ to know what he’s thinking, but is somehow too pussy to turn around and ask. He stays crouched for just a moment, staring at the gleaming paint in the moonlight, and thinks about Peter. Spiderman. Too good for him. Too alive. Too rich with flavor and too youthful, so much left to learn and too much life lived already.

He thinks about all those mornings, scratched up and crawling around town after a long night on the job, sometimes laughing himself drunk, other times spitting with blood and anger. The darkness in factory windows, the empty chairs in all-glass office complexes. Chrome shining in the moonlight. The occasional car rolling through, headlights staining the emptiness white.

He feels Spidey’s absence when he’s not there. One man’s absence fills entire cities.

“Vermont, huh?”

He looks back in time to see Peter startle, apparently also lost in thought. The younger make a noncommittal sound of agreement.

“We can go to Vermont,” he murmurs. For just a second, Wade closes his eyes and lets himself bask in the haziness of his thoughts, brain still working its way back to fully developed. Sometimes an unfinished healing factor job means he doesn’t have a filter for a little while. Sometimes it means he can produce some very Eastern-sounding phonemes. Sometimes it makes him wait hours before all of his memories fill back in again.

Today, it means his defenses are down. His thoughts pass freely through his head, and for just one moment, he lets them have him.

He and Peter driving up into the wilderness, past the out-of-season ski resorts, beside a river that looks a lot like the rafting segment of The Oregon Trail. Hidden in some cabin, the newspapers reporting their absences miles and miles away. Wandering through a Ben and Jerry’s graveyard. Axing down a tree for the hell of it. Building a fire. Lounging in the heat of a hot tub outside, Peter’s hair wet and his cheeks pink from the steam, eyes lidded as snow wisps onto them from above, melting right before coming into contact with the heat of their skin.

Peter, who gives him a questioning look when he comes back to himself on a road in upstate New York.

Peter, who is always waiting for him when he comes back, always sitting unfinished on his tongue, leaping over the precipice of eternity to find him again.

And it sounds just like a song.

**Author's Note:**

> As Wade promised:  
> [bardcore watermelon sugar](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhjyEMMh7Ew)  
> [mii channel coffin dance](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjvQvmUPBXw)


End file.
